See Chelsea I try and take you everywhere with me these days. Like you are some little token or a toy poodle I can stuff in my pocket and no one can really tell you are there except for me. In the morning, you hop in my car and we bump to gangsta tunes that are at least 5 years outdated, spitting those raunchy lyrics like we mean business as we drive down to work.
I like waking up to that slap in the face of heavy beats. The other passengers might not enjoy our style as much, but we got the CD deck on lock as always so they kinda have to power through the bass heavy commute.
I love joking around with you throughout the day especially when I have gapers in my snowboard classes or I see someone on skis hitting kickers like you do. I haven’t seen anyone that matches your running man though. No worries. You love the Colorado sun so much that I always take you on my adventures in the mountains. The rays sweeping across both our faces. Man, its hard to wipe a cheesy smile off mine.
We keep the smiles rolling on all my homies faces, per usual. I pass out your shenanigan stories like candy and my friends eat it up like its the day after Halloween. I think that is where you flourish most–over a couple of brews just kicking it with a group of friends passionately describing past experiences. It’s kinda funny how you are just kicking it in my pocket when they are wishing they could meet you.
Night hits and the stars appear. I am like a little kid flipping through the same bedtime story as I open up that hilarious scrap book you made me a few years ago. it is filled with more than embarrassing photos of the two of us, cheesy friendship quotes, your messages and spirit concentrated on every page.
I don’t know how you managed to hack into my dreams but i am not mad about it. We just continue our adventures without the rules of reality to bind us down. Mostly I don’t want to wake up because right when my eyes open you slip outta my mind like fine grains of sand. And all I want to do is be a crazy person and not accept reality. Not accept the truth that you are no longer creating a path alongside mine, intertwining as we make our journeys through the world.
Somedays you are so gone. And that is why I cling to my dreams and childish imaginations of your existence. It is the only way for me not be crushed by your absence. I am actually under that overwhelming ocean of disbelieve quite frequently and that is when I feel you the least.
That’s what I am saying Chels, we are just going to have to keep hanging out in the sunshine together. Forever or else I will go crazy or worse, forget.
Love you always,
Kaitlyn
I have read this multiple times and each time, I find myself smiling as I picture you with Chelsea in your pocket. I can see you in the car spewing foul lyrics to an awesome beat. I can see you with your friends telling and embellishing stories of Chelsea (there are a ton, I know. She had a way of making the average day in to a great/silly story). Then, towards the end, I start to cry as you describe the letting go, the sorrow that the presence of her absence brings and worrying about the memories slipping away.
I believe that Chels lives with us still as I can feel her presence. I don’t feel it every moment, but I feel it more and more frequently. I see the signs she leaves for me and on occasion she will visit me in my dreams. I need Chels to live on and we can make that happen by doing just what you described above – sharing her life with those around us. Sharing stories, sharing memories and also sharing our sorrow and disbelief that her physical presence has escaped us for now.
I love you KO and so enjoy reading your words and where they take me in my mind.
Wow, Kaitlyn. You are an incredible writer and even though I know your relationship with Chels is different from mine – I can tell that you’re missing her every bit as much as I am. And that you love her every bit as much as I do. And that the thought of losing her forever terrifies you just like it terrifies me.
It is a strange kind of comfort to know that someone else out there is thinking of her all through the day. Mostly smiling with her, but completely anguished when confronted with the physical reality of her absence in our lives. Losing Chelsea feels unbearable, but I can still look at pictures of her and feel the warmth of her smile. And imagining you in Colorado smiling with her is a comfort, too.
I wish I could say that it will get better, easier, and I guess in some ways it will. Because, in time, we learn to live with our pain and and we find ways to carry those we’ve loved in our hearts, so that we never lose them. It’s never the same, but our experiences hopefully make us wiser, more compassionate, and loving human beings.
Anyways, thanks for your beautiful post. I think it’s just knowing that Chelsea had a friend like you in her life that makes me so happy, because it’s so apparent what a great friendship the two of you had and how much fun (the Chelsea-Kaitlyn kind!) you had together.